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Well, today I had a few hours before I was due in at work. I decided to have a go at filing bevels after watching videos of people doing it two different ways. I ended up experimenting with both methods, filing from edge to spine and filing from tip to ricasso. The tip to ricasso method was painfully slow and the edge to spine method was very quick, a bit too quick and I ended up over-grinding one side of my knife. Hopefully I will be able to make the two sides meet in the center through sanding and then after heat treat when I finally create the primary edge and sharpen. Here are a few pics of the set-up and a couple pictures, where you can see the overgrind.

Setup:

Nasty Mess:

I guess my question is, what is the preferred method of cutting in bevels with a hand file? Also, should I have cut in the plunges before grinding the bevels, because I really didn't get much of a plunge at all.

Should I have taken a steeper angle when doing the initial beveling such as a 45 degree angle?

I decided to begin sanding since I had filed my edge to nickel thickness. The geometry is downright bad since I clearly had no idea what I was doing when filing the edge down. You will see what I am talking about when you spot my terrible plunges. I decided to start sanding and this where I am at now.

Do I go back to filing or is it too late since I started filing the edge at too low of an angle? And once again should I have done the plunges first like Mr. Swanson does?

I've continued to sand the edge and I am slowly straightening the edge out. I am about .50 to .54 along the edge and will continue to sand some more until I am happy with the straightness of the edge. I clearly need a lot of practice on plunge lines and draw filing but this is the my experience doing any sort of metal work.

A few questions I would appreciate answered...

1. I feel that my files only cut well when pushing the file from tip to ricasso, versus what I've seen from videos posted by Coop who files from ricasso to tip. Am I imagining this or does the file only cut one way when using the push file method similar to standard filing?

2. You'll notice that I am having trouble thinning the edge near the ricasso so I was thinking about using my chainsaw file to create a spanish notch, which would eliminate most of that. Would you recommend such practice or is this a bandage to a faulty technique that I should work on?

Thanks as always and I would love comments.

This is turning into a mini-cleaver with the thickness behind the edge